WHEN Yeap Chor Ee left his hometown in southern China in 1885 to seek his fortune in Southeast Asia – then known as Nanyang, or the southern seas – he was just one of 125,000 people fleeing a land struck by famine and rebellion.
By the time of his death in May 1952, Yeap had become one of the most prominent men in pre-independence Malaya and the richest man in the northern state of Penang, his name synonymous with philanthropy and real estate.
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